The Trouble with Large Sweeping Images

This image looks simpler than many I do, but images like this present challenges for me because they often have large carefully gradated areas (like the long sweep of the arm in the foreground).

I've never really cared for "action painting" as Pollack came to call it, where he works on the entire canvas at once. I tend to block in large areas with a ground color and then carefully tackle a section at a time up close. Then finally glaze large areas again to draw them all together.

Neon Blonde Surfacing | 60 x 40 inches | oil on panel

It took me quite a few days of glazing to draw this image together and unify the background (as well as the skin tone in the foreground). Unfortunately this photo doesn't reveal the subtlety of the original oil painting, particularly because DSLR's don't often capture flourescent spectrums well--there's far more detail in the "neon" (cadmium yellow light glazed with pthalo green) swimsuit top.